Orono Bog Boardwalk Open

Volunteers have been hard at work at the Orono Bog Boardwalk repairing the damage done by vandals over the holiday weekend, and they’ve made a lot of progress.Folks who volunteer their time at the Orono Bog Boardwalk say this is the worst case of vandalism they’ve ever seen here.”Nothing this extensive. We’ve had 3 to 5 cases of small sort of vandalism sort of things, but nothing this extensive.”Jim Bird says he immediately called in the volunteer cavalry to try and repair the damage that was done and the response he got was overwhelming. Paul Markson was one of the many who answered the call. He had just retruned from vacation when he got the news.”I was a little shocked. I was disappointed. I spent the last two weeks in Arizona and got home this morning and picked up the paper and that was the headline I did not want to see.”But Markson and the others got right to work.”Pretty much ripping up broken floor boards and replacing them. And now we’re going around and deconstructing the benches that were destroyed and using as many of the good pieces as we can and putting those back together.”This piece of railing along the boardwalk has been replaced. The board that used to be here is now out in the bog. At the time of the repairs, the volunteers were hopeful to open the boardwalk soon.”It’s gonna feel good, but the damage we saw is going to linger for quite awhile. I’ve been involved since 2004 and we’ve often had little bits of vandalism here or there but nothing like this. This is just, it borders on tragic.”They say a few bad apples aren’t going to ruin it for everyone.”No. We’ll be back up and running soon.”Bangor Police are still investigating the vandalism. The Orono Bog Boardwalk did re-open Wednesday morning. Jim Bird says while there’s still benches to build, along with a few other repairs, the boardwalk is now safe for the public. Bird says that, including volunteer work hours, the damage totaled between two and three thousand dollars. For updates on the repairs, you can visit www.oronobogwalk.org.